Advantages of the mili rare. Two precautions are therefore advised to be observed in all prudent and free governments: 1. To prevent the introduction of slavery at all: or, 2. If it be already introduced, not to intrust those slaves with arms; who will then find themselves an overmatch for the freemen. Much less ought the soldiery to be an exception to the people in general, and the only state of servitude in the nation. But as soldiers, by this annual act, are thus put in a worse tary service. condition than any other subjects, so by the humanity of our standing laws, they are in some cases put in a much better, By statute 43 Eliz. c. 3, a weekly allowance is to be raised in every county for the relief of soldiers that are sick, hurt, and maimed: although this has not been of late years collected: not forgetting the royal hospital at Chelsea for such as are worn out in their duty. Officers and soldiers, that have been in the king's service, are by several statutes, enacted at the close of several wars, at liberty to use any trade or occupation they are fit for, in any town in the kingdom (except the two universities) notwithstanding any statute, custom, or charter to the contrary. And soldiers in actual military service may, as well before as since the recent statutes, make nuncupative wills, and dispose of their goods, wages and other personal chattels, without those forms, solemnities, and expenses, which the law requires in other cases. Our law does not indeed extend this privilege so far as the civil law; which carried it to an extreme that borders upon the ridiculous. For if a soldier, in the article of death, wrote any thing in bloody letters on his shield, or in the dust of the field with his sword, it was a very good military testament. And thus much for the military state, as acknowledged by the laws of England. [ 419 ] The maritime state, The maritime state is nearly related to the former: though much more agreeable to the principles of our free constitution. The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength : Mr. J. Coleridge's note. Stat. 29 Car. II. c. 3. 5 Wm. III. c. 21, §. 6. 1 Vict. c. 26, s. 11. iSi milites quid in clypeo literis sanguine sue rutilantibus adnotaverint, aut in pulvere inscripserint gladio suo, ipso tempore quo, in prælio, vitæ sortem derelinquunt, hujusmodi voluntatem stabilem esse oportet. Cod. 6, 21, 15. See also post, p. 255. : the floating bulwark of the island; an army, from which, however strong and powerful, no danger can ever be apprehended to liberty and accordingly it has been assiduously cultivated, even from the earliest ages. To so much perfection was our naval reputation arrived in the twelfth century, that the code of maritime laws, which are called the laws of Oleron, and are received by all nations in Europe as the ground and substruction of all their marine constitutions, was confessedly compiled by our king Richard the first, at the isle of Oleron on the coast of France, then part of the possessions of the crown of England. And yet, so vastly inferior were our ancestors in this point to the present age, that even in the maritime reign of queen Elizabeth sir Edward Cokek thinks it matter of boast, that the royal navy of England then consisted of three and thirty ships. The present condition of our marine is in great measure owing to the salutary provisions of the statutes, called the navigation acts; whereby the constant increase of English shipping and seamen was not only encouraged, but rendered unavoidably necessary. By the statute 5 Ric. II. c. 3, in order to augment the navy of England, then greatly diminished, it was ordained, that none of the king's liege people should ship any merchandize out of or into the realm but only in ships of the king's ligeance, on pain of forfeiture. In the next year, by statute 6 Ric. II. c. 8, this wise provision was enervated, by only obliging the merchants to give English ships (if able and sufficient) the preference. But the most beneficial statute for the trade and commerce of these kingdoms, at the time perhaps in which it was made, was that navigation act, the rudiments of which were first framed in 1650,1 with a narrow partial view: being intended to mortify our own sugar islands, which were disaffected to the parliament and still held out for Charles II., by stopping the gainful trade which they then carried on with the Dutch; m and at the same time [ 420 ] to clip the wings of those our opulent and aspiring neighbours. This prohibited all ships of foreign nations from trading with any English plantations without license from j 4 Inst. 144. Coutumes de la mer. 2. 4 Inst. 50. 1 Scobell, 132. m Mod. Un. Hist. xli. 289. Regulations as to the the council of state. In 1651 the prohibition was extended also to the mother country: and no goods were suffered to be imported into England, or any of its dependencies, in any other than English bottoms; or in the ships of that European nation, of which the merchandize imported was the genuine growth or manufacture. At the Restoration, the former provisions were continued, by statute 12 Car. II. c. 18, with this very material alteration, that the master and three-fourths of the mariners should also be English subjects. And these acts were farther enforced and rendered more effectual by statutes 26 Geo. III. c. 60, and 27 Geo. III. c. 19, and other statutes. But in 1825, these and all other acts on the subject were repealed, as it was very generally admitted that the old regulations on the subject were, at any rate, inapplicable to the exigencies of the present time. By the act then passed, 6 Geo. IV. c. 109, the coasting trade is entirely confined to British ships, but foreign shipping is in some instances admitted to the import trade upon certain condi tions. The masters and seamen of our vessels must be natural-born subjects, naturalized or denizens, or such as have become subjects by conquest or cession, or persons who have served on board a man of war, belonging to the king, in war time, for three years, but by virtue of a royal proclamation, this period of service may be lessened to two years and by the same authority the proportion of seamen may be altered. But both in English and foreign ships one proper seaman to twenty tons is declared sufficient, though the number of the other mariners may exceed one-fourth of the whole crew. All British ships must be registered according to the provisions of the 6 Geo. IV. c. 110. Many laws have been made for the supply of the royal royal navy. navy with seamen; for their regulation when on board; and to confer privileges and rewards on them during and after their service. 1. For the supply of seamen. 1. First, for their supply. The power of impressing sea-faring men for the sea service by the king's commission has been a matter of some dispute, and submitted to with great reluctance; though it hath very clearly and learnedly been shewn, by sir Michael Foster, that the practice of im r ment of pressing, and granting powers to the admiralty for that pur- Impres pose, is of very ancient date, and hath been uniformly con- seamen. tinued by a regular series of precedents to the present time: whence he concludes it to be part of the common law, and this has been so held repeatedly.P The difficulty arises from hence, that no statute has expressly declared this power to be in the crown, though many of them very strongly imply it. The statute 2 Ric. II. c. 4, speaks of mariners being arrested and retained for the king's service, as of a thing well known and practised without dispute; and provides a remedy against their running away. By a later statute, if any waterman, [ 419*] who uses the river Thames, shall hide himself during the execution of any commission of pressing for the king's service, he is liable to heavy penalties. By another, no fisherman shall be taken by the queen's commission to serve as a mariner; but the commission shall be first brought to two justices of the peace, inhabiting near the sea coast where the mariners are to be taken, to the intent that the justices may choose out and return such a number of able-bodied men, as in the commission are contained, to serve her majesty. And, by others, especial protections are allowed to seamen in particular circumstances, to prevent them from being impressed. And ferrymen are also said to be privileged from being impressed, at common law.t All which do most evidently imply a power of impressing to reside somewhere; and, if any where, it must from the spirit of our constitution, as well as from the frequent mention of the king's commission, reside in the crown alone. It has been recently enacted," that no person shall be liable to be detained, against his consent, in the royal navy for a longer period than three years, but the statute authorizes the commanding officer of the squadron to detain such person in cases of exigency, for a further period of six months, or until such emergency shall have ceased. But, besides this method of impressing, (which is only P See also Comb. 245. Barr. 334. See Stat. 7 & 8 Wm. III. c. 21. 2 Ann. c. 6. 4 & 5 Ann. c. 19. 13 Geo. II. c. 17. 2 Geo. III. c. 15. t Sav. 14. " 5 & 6 Wm. IV. c. 24. of manning the navy. Other ways defensible from public necessity, to which all private considerations must give way) there are other ways that tend to the increase of seamen, and manning the royal navy. Parishes may bind out poor boys apprentices to masters of merchantmen, who shall be protected from impressing for the first three years; and if they are impressed afterwards, the masters shall be allowed their wages; great advantages in point of wages are given to volunteer seamen in order to induce them to enter into his majesty's service; w and every foreign seaman, who during a war shall serve two years in any man of war, merchantman, or privateer, is naturalized ipso facto. About the middle of king William's reign, a scheme was set on footy for a register of seamen to the [420] number of thirty thousand, for a constant and regular supply of the king's fleet; with great privileges to the registered men, and, on the other hand, heavy penalties in case of their non-appearance when called for: but this registry, being judged to be ineffectual as well as oppressive, was abolished by statute 9 Ann. c. 21; but has been recently partially re-established.z 2. The articles for the navy. 2. The method of ordering seamen in the royal fleet, and ordering the keeping up a regular discipline there, is directed by certain express rules, articles, and orders, first enacted by the authority of parliament soon after the Restoration; a but since new modelled and altered, after the peace of Aix la Chapelle,b to remedy some defects which were of fatal consequence in conducting the preceding war. In these articles of the navy almost every possible offence is set down, and the punishment thereof annexed: in which respect the seamen have much the advantage over their brethren in the land service: whose articles of war are not enacted by parliament, but framed from time to time at the pleasure of the crown. from whence this distinction arose, and why the executive power, which is limited so properly with regard to the navy, should be so extensive with regard to the army, it is hard to Y Stat. 2 Ann. c. 6. 5 & 6 Wm. W Stat. 31 Geo. II. c. 10. Stat. 13 Geo. II. c. 3. See ante p. 399. y Stat. 7 & 8 Wm. III. c. 21. z 5 & 6 Wm. IV. c. 19. a Stat. 13 Car. II. st. 1, c. 9. Yet b Stat. 22 Geo. II. c. 23, amended by 19 Geo. III. c. 17. |